Research Focus: The role of contracts and institutions in shaping agricultural land use in the historical U.S. and contemporary Brazil, including the Amazon, and the important role of institutions in the economy

Research/Teaching Focus: Pre-Columbian and Colonial Latin American art, specifically, the roles and representation of gender, ethnicity, and sanctity in colonial Latin American cultures, as well as relations between text and image in colonial visual culture.

Research/Teaching Focus: The depiction of the diverse forms of rural insurgency labeled “banditry” in postcolonial Latin American culture, and the relationship between banditry and the imagination of the nation-state.

Research/Teaching Focus: My research examines ideas about what makes good coffee, and what makes coffee good, across the commodity chain, from producers to consumers. In so doing I bring together the wide lens economic and historical anthropology and the intimate focus of belonging, identity, and distinction.

Research/Teaching Focus: Research focus: Political competition and territorial expansion in Late Postclassic Mesoamerica; Geographic Information Systems for social sciences; Archaeology and the history of ancient disasters. Teaching focus: Mesoamerican archaeology and ethnohistory

Research/Teaching Focus: Contemporary Spanish and Spanish American poetry; Women writers from Spain and Spanish America; Literature of the Spanish Caribbean; Contemporary Jewish Writing in the Hispanic World

Research/Teaching Focus: My research can be divided into several interrelated areas: 20-21st Century Mexican Literature and Culture; Cross-cultural Communication and Exchange between Latin America and the United States; Globalization and Cultural Identity; Ethics in Relation to International Business, and Spanish for professional uses. These areas reflect my intellectual commitment to contributing quality work to the fields of literature and cultural studies while also seeking meaningful connections between academic theories about identity and concrete experience. In addition, my research compliments my teaching areas since language and culture are integral element in the Spanish for business course and because I also teach literature and Latin American culture classes in the department.

Research/Teaching Focus: As a Chicana historian, feminist theorist and creative writer, I have attempted to traverse various scholarly and creative interests since earning my PhD in History at UCLA. My past research has included archival research in Yucatan, Mexico where I combed the archives for documents on the social and cultural history of the women who held the feminist congresses in Merida in 1916.